Springfield City Council approves $593M spending plan

After two months of discussion and debate, the Springfield City Council on Wednesday approved Mayor Mike Houston’s $593.3 million spending plan for fiscal year 2015, which begins Saturday.

The budget, which passed on a 9-1 vote at a special council meeting, includes $339.5 million in expenses for City Water, Light and Power and $253.8 million for all other city services and programs. Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin cast the only vote against the budget proposal.

The plan calls for the city to spend $16.1 million more than last year, a 2.8 percent increase.

However, that includes about $29 million in spending on the first phase of a three-year program to upgrade streets, sidewalks and storm sewers. Those projects are being paid for with bonds that will be repaid with revenue from the half-cent sales tax increase that kicked in Jan. 1.

Spending in the corporate fund, which covers most day-to-day city operations is budgeted at $115.3 million, a decrease of about 1 percent from the current year.

“Overall, we felt like we put forth a pretty reasonable budget,” Budget Director Bill McCarty said. “It for the most part was a maintenance budget. … We felt like working with the city council went very well this year.”

While Ward 2 Ald. Gail Simpson had proposed drawing $268,000 from reserves to fund more staff and expanded hours at Lincoln Library, in the end the only significant changes aldermen made to the administration’s proposal were transferring $50,000 from the Office of Budget and Management and $29,000 from the mayor’s office to the city council budget.

Ward 6 Ald. Cory Jobe and other aldermen are proposing using that money to create an inspector general position to investigate wrongdoing in city government.

Jobe said after the meeting that the plan calls for creating a subcommittee of four aldermen to study the issue, gather input from current and former public officials and members of the public, and put together a plan for how the position will function.

Given the $79,000 currently available, he said it might start out as a part-time or contractual position.

“In the tough budget times we’re in, we realize this was what we could do, and I think it’s the first step,” Jobe said. “And I think we get this moving in the right direction, then we expand it … in next year’s budget.”

The members of the proposed subcommittee will be announced next week, he said.

The $50,000 from McCarty’s office was initially intended for hiring a private investigation firm to look into instances of employee misconduct, such as abuse of workers’ compensation claims or sick time.

McCarty said the administration looks forward to working with Jobe and other aldermen on the new plan.

“We are hoping that it leads to the accountability that the administration’s looking for and the accountability that the council is looking for,” he said.